License

As of v0.40.0, OxiDB is source-available. Read it, modify it, and run it in production for your own applications and business — free, at any scale, with no registration.

What is free

Running the server for your own application, at any scale and on any number of instances. Reading and modifying the source. Building on it internally. Evaluating it without asking anyone.

If your users reach your application and OxiDB is what stands behind it, that is free use. If your users reach OxiDB — you are selling access to the database, or a platform over it — that is the hosted-service case below.

What needs a commercial license

Two things, and only two:

  • Hosting — offering OxiDB, or a service built on it, to third parties over a network;
  • Distribution — shipping OxiDB to third parties, on its own or embedded in your product or device.

A commercial license is negotiated directly and can also cover source access and modification rights, support, and update terms. To obtain one, email barisakin@gmail.com.

Client libraries

The thin TCP client libraries (Python oxidb, the JavaScript clients, OxiDb.Client.Tcp / OxiDb.Linq / OxiDb.Data on NuGet, Go, Julia, Dart, PHP, Swift) are MIT-licensed, redistribution included — shipping one inside your application needs no license.

Packages that bundle the engine itselfoxidb-embedded on PyPI, OxiDb.Client.Embedded on NuGet, and the FFI/WASM artifacts — contain the engine and are covered by the source-available license.

Prior versions

Each version stays under the license it was published with, and those grants are irrevocable for those specific versions:

VersionsLicense
Early releases (MIT era)MIT OR Apache-2.0
Up to and including v0.32.xAGPL-3.0-only (dual: AGPL / commercial)
v0.33.0 – v0.39.xProprietary — commercial license required for any use
v0.40.0 and laterSource-available — free for your own production use

v0.40.0 opens the v0.33–v0.39 line up rather than closing it further: those versions required a license for any use at all, including running it yourself. If you hold a commercial license covering them, nothing about it changes.

Why not open source

The engine is the product. An OSI license would let a cloud provider sell it as a managed service without contributing anything back — the asymmetry that pushed MongoDB, Elastic, Redis and HashiCorp off their original licenses. This license blocks that case and nothing else: your own production use, at any scale, is free.

The text is modelled on the Elastic License 2.0, with one limitation added — ELv2 permits redistribution, and embedding OxiDB in a distributed product remains a commercial arrangement here. It carries no conversion date.

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